


Rush through these Wandering Waves

by stickynote_chan



Series: music threads her heart close [4]
Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Can be read standalone, F/F, F/M, I love Chloe but the way the show handles her is AWFUL, M/M, Mme. Bustier does not look good here, Multi, No Beta We Die as Men, Salt, Salty, oh boy guess who's angry at zombizou, same with Adrien, this is the saltiest I'll ever be
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-23
Updated: 2019-08-24
Packaged: 2020-10-01 18:21:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,916
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20364247
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stickynote_chan/pseuds/stickynote_chan
Summary: Maybe it’s because it’s been a year of fighting Akumas and petty reasons fuelling the terror of Paris or maybe it’s because she’s finally sick of being held accountable just because she can be ‘mature’ and ‘responsible’, but Marinette doesn’t want to sit this day down.--Marinette fights back.





	1. Philautia

**Author's Note:**

  * For [RenderedReversed](https://archiveofourown.org/users/RenderedReversed/gifts), [necroesthe](https://archiveofourown.org/users/necroesthe/gifts).

> To dearest RenderedReversed for continuing to read this even though you don't even watch this show anymore.
> 
> To necroesthe who leaves me some of my favourite comments ever and motivates me like no other with your continual support and love.
> 
> Thank you both so much!!

There’s humidity in the air and Marinette can feel the Earth spin underneath her feet, the hush of sweltering and a deep rumbling both far and near.

She can almost taste it.

“Ugh, this heat is killing me,” Alya says, red and sweating. She has a pimple growing on her chin and her face is oily from the horrible climate. Her hair is wild and frizzly even in the messy bun she's forced it into, spilling out in a spiky strays that stick up and make her look a little bit like a duck. Her (awful) flannel shirt is completely sweat soaked. She's so completely beautiful.

It’s a particularly molten day in the bakery. Papa has to have three times as many water breaks to cool down before he suffers a heat stroke. Maman has the air conditioner maxed out so that the sugar doesn’t melt but somehow the heat is inescapable. After rummaging around upstairs, she’s given everyone decorative hand fans and usherings to go upstairs and leave the work to Maman and Papa. No one had agreed.

The shaking in her bones continues.

“The rain will come soon,” she says, trying to smile and it falls somewhere flat in the valley, between truth and denial.

“Marinette?” Luka asks, hand on her shoulder and there must have been a wrong note (_ dissonance _, Luka's voice says) in her voice or her heartsong is wavering because he sounds worried. His hair's sticking to his forehead and his nails need to be repainted because he keeps picking at it. The eye-bags under his eyes are deep and bruising. “What’s in your head?”

“Mari?” Alya says, already ready to stand by her and already ready to fight with her, for her, by her.

She takes Luka’s and Alya’s hands and holds on tight. She loves them so much. These two precious people.

She doesn’t know if there’s really reincarnation, Tikki sometimes says things that leaves breadcrumbs of cycles and afterlifes but, like everything with the Kwami, there’s no real conclusion. But if there _ is _ reincarnation... Besides her parents, besides her other friends, she selfishly hopes that out of everyone in the world, that these two… That Alya and Luka… She _ hopes _ that she’d be allowed the chance to meet again and again in every lifetime. She hopes that Alya-and-Marinette and Luka-and-Marinette can meet and love again.

Her heart is hoping.

“It’s alright,” she says. “I just wanted to say I love you guys so much but please don’t cuddle with me, it’s too hot for that.”

Alya laughs, easy and carefree, airy light and fresh winds. She’d been a tornado at first, fast and consuming, but Marinette knows there’s gentle sails in her heart.

Luka boils her and cools her down with every one of his gaze, every thought spoken or strummed on his guitar, everytime they tangle their hands together and the fire and water between them turns into lightning touches.

There’s something waiting but she can brace it with air and water, with her own fire.

* * *

Falling out of love with Adrien begins with Chloé.

For ten years and the last four years, in particular, Chloé felt like a heartbreak. Because they've known each other since école maternelle but she hadn't always been angry and cruel and Marinette hadn't always been defensive and bitter.

Because there’s lost love somewhere between them and it still hurts the both of them too much.

“What did you get for Mme. Bustier, Chloé?” Adrien asks, kind, sweet and believing in the best of everyone.

Chloé and her connect eyes as it had for the last ten years and Marinette’s lips pull down into a frown. She doesn’t love Chloé but she knows her too well. Wasn’t Adrien her childhood best friend?

Sabrina steps up when everyone groans. “It's not her fault, okay? Chloé just doesn't like birthdays! She never remembers them, just like her mom.”

“Don’t blurt that out,” Marinette says the same time as Chloé snaps at Sabine, “You don't have to tell them my life story, either.”

Of course, they’re insync. It’s so completely horrible but Marinette still sees the sunshine in her hair and the beauty in her eyes. The then mixed into the now, overlaid in a transparent gloss at the edges of her vision. There’s a heartbeat and they’re stuck between four and fourteen years old, stuck between love and hate. Marinette holding her hand. Chloé shoving her back.

Marinette knows she hates her so much only because she had loved her equally as much.

“Anyway, all that stuff about compliments and love?” Chloé scoffs, moving on as she’s always done and burying everything between them into a neat, messy box of spite and petty cruelty. “Ridiculous! Utterly ridiculous!”

Marinette glares. There’s a forgotten forever between them and it stops mattering. “You don’t have a heart.”

Adrien turns around to look at her, eyes pulled up in surprise and mouth forming an admonishing frown just as quickly. Her heart flares in a flash of anger and it hurts her as much as it surprises her. But she can’t stop it because,

_ How dare he _.

Chloé laughs. Cold, cruel, a mountain of broken promises. “Uh, of course, I have a heart! Daddy will even buy me a second one, if I want.”

* * *

“What?” Marinette says and her teeth clenches together, teeth grinding. “You're going to let her get away with this?!”

There’s outrage from the rest of the class lead primarily by Alya who stands up, her hands curled into tiny fists and she looks ready to throw Chloé down into the ring, and Marinette doesn’t know how she could ever deserve her but Mme. Bustier claps her hands and shushes them.

“The classroom is not a place for insults and defamation!” she says and isn’t _ that _ ironic. “Marinette, would you come with me, please?”

“W-What?” she says but she already knows this script, it’s been happening since Chloé tossed her onto the floor and broke her heart.

Chloé throws her a dark and smug smile.

But Mme. Bustier continues, “Alya, I'm relying on you to make sure things don't get out of hand while we're gone.”

They’re outside in a moment because Marinette knows disobeying will only hurt more.

The air outside is thick and she almost can’t even swallow, there’s so much moisture. Sweat builds on her neck and it’s a coin-flip whether it’s because of the heat or the anger in her chest. It leaning towards the anger.

This is injustice and pain and ten years in the waiting.

“It's not fair!” she argues. “It was Chloé, pulling another Chloé! And… I'm the one who's getting in trouble?!”

“Of course you're not in trouble, don't worry!” Mme. Bustier kneels down and puts her hand on Marinette’s shoulder. She smiles, completely oblivious to how this is already seen to the other students by her singling out Marinette like this. “As the class representative, I want you to set a good example for your classmates. Don't give into feelings of anger. Try to forgive Chloé, instead.”

Maybe it’s because it’s been a year of fighting Akumas and petty reasons fuelling the terror of Paris or maybe it’s because she’s finally _ sick _ of being held accountable just because she can be ‘mature’ and ‘responsible’, but Marinette doesn’t want to sit this day down.

Today, the excuses don’t cut it.

Mme. Bustier is kind and nice to everyone but Marinette is finally realising that she’s never made sure Chloé is actually punished for doing anything horrible. Not when she ruined Alya’s book this year. Not when she broke Juleka’s project last year. Not when she ripped apart Nathaniel’s artwork the year before that. Not when she hurt each member of their class for four years and sometimes longer since.

(If she reaches down the well in the back of her head, sends the bucket all the way down into the dark, murky pit, she can almost remember even way back then when Chloé had snapped Nino’s CD when they were six years old and the teacher had stood back and turned his head.)

Chloé can continue to terrorise everyone in class. Chloé can continue to cause the akumatisation of everyone in class. Chloé can continue openly taunt her and trip her and bully her for the last four years right in Mme. Bustier’s face. Because she’ll never be told to be responsible by these adults.

She takes Mme. Bustier’s hand off her shoulder.

“No, I won’t forgive Chloé,” she says and watches in satisfaction when her teacher blinks in surprise.

Her hand fiddles inside her bag behind her back and Tikki presses her phone into her palm. Nuzzles her fingers. She sees Alya through the window, sees the classmates she’s suffered with for years behind her.

“I’m sorry?” Mme. Bustier asks, genuinely puzzled, genuinely negligent.

Her heart calms, inverts so quickly its a frozen tundra instead of an inferno of injustice. “I can let the anger go but _ I will never forgive Chloé Bourgeois _ . I am not your scapegoat, I shouldn’t be held accountable for the stuff Chloé pulls because I have to be a _ good role model _. You’ve only been our teacher for four years but Chloé and I have been together for ten years. She’s been like this for a decade and nothing has ever changed and now I think I know why.

“It’s because of people like you,” Marinette says, there’s too many words bubbling for the surface but she’s Tom and Sabine’s daughter, baker’s daughter, she can pour them out measured and perfect. “Because of adults like you who look at Chloé and think the fact that her mother left her is enough of an excuse for her to act like a horrible person. You’re better than the people who just want to be on her dad’s good side but not by much. You keep giving her second chances when she’s already stepped ten million kilometres past that point. You’re enabling her behaviour instead of punishing her even when she’s been bullying me and everyone for years.”

“Now, I wouldn’t say bullying, Marinette, that’s a bit too far,” Mme. Bustier says, trying for a smile but Marinette shakes her head.

“She’s been the biggest bully in the entire school,” she says, arms folded, eyes firm, conviction firmer. “She’s destroyed Nathaniel, Juleka, Nino, Alya’s and _ my _ work several times. She’s vandalised _ everyone’s _ work. She’s insulted and personally attacked every person in that classroom many times over. There’s evidence and several witnesses for each and every time.

“But what have you done? _ Nothing _ . You’ve never once stepped in because you coddle her and think she’ll eventually change even though _ she’s proven she has no inclination to change _ . Why? Because of stuff like this! You’re lecturing _ me _ when Chloé literally just vandalised my work out of pure spite! You want _ me _ to fix Chloé when you should be doing that yourself. Instead of doing something a responsible teacher would like suggest her a counsellor to work through her problems, or talk to her dad, or even _ detentions _ when she acts like a horrible person, you throw the people who care and respect you into the ground. You'd break her targets, the weak ones who are vulnerable, before you'd exert yourself, trouble yourself, beyond preaching about love and trust and not actually _teach_ those same lesson.

“I am a victim of Chloé Bourgeois’s bullying and you expect me to understand her and excuse her behaviour when she hurts me but you will never think about it from my perspective and never when this is reversed.” She takes a deep breath and it feels like tears when she says, “I’m sorry Madame Bustier, but, from this day forward, I don’t think I can be a part of a class with a teacher who has no respect for me and continues to let my bully hurt everyone. I will be asking M. Damocles to transfer me to another class and, worst case scenario, to another school, if need be.”

She walks off and Alya joins her, wraps her hand in her own and squeezes just as hard when Marinette all but clings onto her. Nino comes by and takes her other hand because he’s been there since the beginning even if he hadn't always been by her side. Nathaniel brings up the rear, quick and nimbly brushing past the figure of their still crouching teacher. With a casual finesse, Alix skates to front and, of course, Kim speedily jogs besides Alix not to be outdone as Max follows up, calmly reciting some laws and school rules. Juleka and Rose nudge in next to Nathaniel while Mylène and Ivan quietly but resolutely turn their backs on that classroom.

The Class of Mme. Bustier walks to M. Damocles office.

It's not everyone, Marinette realises, doing a practiced head count and knowing instantly who was not there.

She looks behind, over the Rose’s shoulder, briefly, compelled by morbid curiosity and sees Adrien talking to her former teacher, Chloé and Sabrina by his side.

* * *

There’s an issue with having almost an entire class wanting to transfer to any other teacher’s authority.

Sabine arrives just as M. Damocles is trying to tell the group to go back to class and on the cusp of giving them all detention for being nuisances.

She kisses Marinette on the cheeks and sits down on the visitor’s chair like the wizened Empress of a flourishing dynasty, staring at the Principal in the eyes with a tigress’ ferocity. One time, many years ago, Marinette had been told her Maman was born in the year of the tiger by her Papa and she can see it now.

They’re gently ushered out of the Office to wait by Sabine’s deathly calm voice. “I’m sorry, children, but M. Damocles and I will need to discuss some things between adults. Don’t stand outside in the heat. I’m sure you can find a spare room with air conditioning in the meantime.”

“Your mother is _ awesome _,” Alya says. “How’d she come so quickly?”

Marinette pulls out her phone and turns it on to shows her the recent calls. “My parents were on the line the whole time I was talking to Mme. Bustier.”

“_ Girl _ , you mad genius,” Alya says. “And now M. Damocles _ has _ to listen!”

All eleven of them look at each other.

There’s a slightly slow realisation.

Max, Kim and Alix pull out their phones like clockwork but they're beat by their resident Ladyblog reporter who whips out hers so fast it's a smear frame, her experience shining. Nino yells into his phone while Nathaniel speaks softly, hand cupped to cover his mouth to cover his words. Juleka texts quickly and then hands her phone to Rose because it's past noon and hers is dead. Ivan talks to his father with a stone face while Mylène talks with giant, sweeping arms accompanying every word to accentuate her point.

Thus, the school day is devolved into calling everyone’s parents and guardians.

The first to arrive is M. Kubdel who runs up the stairs and then back down when he realises they were in the downstairs classroom, looking like he’s rushed all the way from the museum, and immediately asks if Alix is alright and then the rest of the class too. Alix smiles and rolls her eyes.

Nathaniel’s grandmother is right behind him and, despite the mirthful wrinkles around her mouth, Marinette isn't surprised to see the flinty look in matron's hawk eyes.

Rose’s uncle is bright and bubbly as his niece, cheerful as he greets Juleka, Ivan, Nino and Marinette but the smile on his face could freeze oceans as he helped Nathaniel's grandmother up the stairs.

M. Haprèle arrives together with Ivan’s grandfather who is the complete of M. Lavillant opposite and dressed in skulls and so much black Marinette is surprised he’s not absorbing the sun. M. Haprèle jokes with M. Bruel about dressing for the occasion and pats his daughter's head before they too disappeared.

Not even a minute later, Alya’s mother doesn't even stop by the classroom and storms past the group and upstairs because Alya is a _ thorough _ reporter. On the other hand, Alya's father waves at all the kids and hands them three baskets of food before hurriedly following up.

While Kim’s father is in Vietnam, his _ mother _ looks about ready to unleash a flood of fury when she sweeps into school and scoops Kim into her arms much to his embarrassment. She sets him down carefully and brushes his hair of his face, hand gentle and ferocious as her smile when she says, “No one will hurt my baby.”

It wasn't long until Nino’s mother, smartly dressed and presentable, greets Alya and then Marinette with two kisses on each cheek and tells her, “Come over sometime, dear, I’ve so missed your company and, of course, you too, Alya.”

Finally, Captain Couffaine comes marching in with a grandiose flourish and a casual Luka who greets everyone before sitting down next to her from where she’s watching the rest play a horrible game of poker.

She smiles at him and he smiles back at her. Even with the air conditioner, it really was much too hot lately.

“Marinette, I love your rebellion!” the Captain declares with bright eyes and a large exhilarated grin before she, too, enters the Principal's Office.

Luka gives her a confused, slightly desperate look. “Jules told me nothing except don’t let Maman take the sword and come to your school pronto.”

Marinette laughs and leans on his shoulder, whispering into his ear everything that’s happened.

“_Good_,” he says when she’s done and there’s a dark undercurrent, a vortex in his voice. Something vicious and something righteous, a charge against injustice interlocked in a system of rivers that join at the ocean in his heart. It gives Marinette pause. It makes her pulse race. “You shouldn’t have had to deal with that in the first place.”

* * *

“I’m sorry for the trouble,” Marinette can't help but say because she's been a good daughter for years and good daughters didn't cause a mass strike.

Papa and Maman cuddle her even tighter like she was still a child and it’s a bit awkward because she’s no longer six but her parents have always been sweet to her.

“Don’t worry ma pupuce, Maman will always take care of you,” Maman says, hand like a comforting wind as it brushes through her hair.

For some reason, Marinette remembers when she'd been seven and Maman had said the same thing when she'd come home broken-hearted and shards of a broken toy still gripped in her tiny hands like the fragments of a broken dream. She hadn't seen the toy ever again.

Maman's voice sounds weak so unlike the Empress she'd been in front of others, hoarse as she spoke, “We’ll bring you the world if it’ll make you happy and this is but a small compromise compared to a whole planet.”

She smiles, lips quiet, and knows they're reputable and stable business owners but, in the end, they're still only bakers. In this world, even disregarding Gods and supervillains, there were still Mayors and mega-corporation CEOs so high above her tiny family of workers.

“My sweet daughter,” Papa starts and Marinette slips her eyes close to rest, “you are the _ love _ in our life.”

Her parents hadn't always been able to be there, can't always be there, but they are sweet for her.

* * *

“Marinette,” Adrien calls out to her later and she turns around to him, slowly, letting the last lingering fantasy of a house and three kids and four hamsters whisper goodbye.

“Adrien,” she acknowledges and the bridge between them is strained because he’s already made his place clear when he stayed behind. They both know it, it’s swirled around them as densely as the invisible moisture in the air. But this is Adrien, who’s made her happy for a whole year and she can give him courtesy. “What can I do for you?”

He frowns and his face is perfect, his hair is sunshine and his eyes are beautiful. “I feel like what you did was a bit cruel. The class is all split up now just over Chloé. Isn’t this a bit much?”

“No,” Marinette says, shutting her eyes and it feels like a break in her ribs. “No, it wasn’t. But I don’t owe you an explanation so let’s just leave it here today. I’m tired and I just want to go home for now. Maybe later when I’m ready, we can talk.”

This isn’t his fault, not like it was with Mme. Bustier who held authority. He doesn’t know what it felt like to be ten years under Chloé’s reign.

“Marinette!” he says even though she’s already turned away, even though she _ asked _. “Please just reconsider! I’m sure Chloé, Mme. Bustier and you can work this out peacefully.”

_ That _ stops her.

She turns around, stares at him in the eyes and sees his naivety and how much he thinks the best of everyone. She sees in him kindness and complacency and wonders where the boy who pulled gum from her seat has gone. But maybe this was him still and she can finally see him fully.

“Adrien, I loved you,” she says and it sounds like thunder and rain. He rears back, consumed by the heat in the air, clapped by the waiting that strikes him quiet and quick. She’s dreamed of this day for so long and now it’s here. It brings no joy but not in the heartbreak she’d thought it would end in. “I loved you so much and I owe it to the me who loved you to tell you this: Chloé is a bully who has terrorised our classroom for years unchecked and our teacher never did anything to stop her. I’m finally able to go to a place where I can feel safe. Our classmates can go to a classroom without expecting Chloé’s constant mean actions and words.”

She breathes in. The air is still too hot, the humidity is horrible, the wind is stale. It’s the easiest breath she’s had in Adrien’s presence. “This _ is _ peace.”

She walks away and it’s his heart of hearts that lets her go. Maybe he will learn but Marinette is already moving on.

The air is still sweltering but the rumbling fades.

* * *

Falling in love with Adrien was due to his kindness despite the misunderstanding caused by Chloé.

Falling out of love with Adrien is due to his kindness because of his understanding with Chloé.


	2. Pragma

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Self-love comes in the form of Marinette erasing Chloé, Sabine, Mme. Bustier and Adrien’s schedules from her giant calendar.

Self-love comes in the form of Marinette erasing Chloé, Sabine, Mme. Bustier and Adrien’s schedules from her giant calendar.

* * *

The Akuma today is someone fed up with the heat and defeated with the help of the fire extinguisher a scientist screaming about chemical reactions throws into her hands.

Afterwards, Ladybug salutes the scientist who collapses into relief and grabs her de-akumatised girlfriend into a bear hug. The two smile at each other, achingly honest and happy, and turn to thank Ladybug with embarrassed looks as if they only remembered she was there.

For her part, Ladybug feels her heart warm at the sight as she bid the two a good night.

Paris is a glow under her arch through dark sky, a flightful of beauty. She looks at the landscape night lights and the pleasant crawl of the moon through the horizon and can't help but be reminded of something she had read. She's not a future English major like Alya who could write like breathing, not always ready to throw down words and poetry like Luka who fumbled his own words and needed the help of others. But, even sometimes, her mind could wonder from lines and colours to the realm of words and human tongue. So she quietly recites it to herself,

**Passent les jours et passent les semaines**   
**Ni temps passé**   
**Ni les amours reviennent**   
**Sous le pont Mirabeau coule la Seine**

While she remembers the whole poem and knows the motif of "Let night come on bells end the day / The days go by me still I stay" really didn't fit, for some reason, this last stanza before the couplet, she felt something resonate hard in her.

_The days the weeks pass by beyond our ken / Neither time past / Nor love comes back again / Under the Mirabeau Bridge there flows the Seine_

Being Ladybug has never felt quite as right as it did right then.

She smiles and there's still an ever present anxiety, an undercurrent of constant vigilance, but it feels less like a facade and more like a real superhero's smile curling her lips.

Chat Noir doesn’t appear all night but she doesn’t give it too much mind, strolling through the humid Parisian city under the silent moon.

The feeling of being human has never reached her as easily as it did as she swings from building to building, no real destination in mind. There’s still something other whispering in her blood but it doesn’t burn up her human flesh as quickly. The inhumanity in her eyes and hum in her ears still scare her but it’s a fear weighed like a yo-yo. It comes back but she can also toss it away when she needs to.

Liberation has never coiled sweeter around her neck.

She’s free person who can decide on her life. She might be Ladybug, bearer of the Creation Spirit, but she’s also Marinette.

And Marinette can etch her decisions into her own life.

* * *

School is tense affair between break time and the corridors is now stifling with the heat in the air and in everyone’s stares. There’s a ready swarm of thick questions for them when they have to venture out of the classroom without each other.

But Marinette keeps her mouth sealed tight when Sabine comes forward to argue, when Mme. Bustier comes to bargain, when Adrien comes to plead, and when curious schoolmates come up to her to ask perverse questions.

“M. Damocles and our parents are currently discussing the matter, please ask them questions if you have concerns,” she says to all of them, sometimes not even bothering to hide Mylène’s prompt card.

Adrien is most disappointed and it hurts her but she knows she’s not the only one hurting.

She’s there when Nino walks out the classroom and goes to talk to Adrien for the first, the second and then the third and final time since the “Fallout”. Each time has left him trudging back to the classroom with increasingly tighter lines around his mouth and hopeful turned frustrated eyes. He collapses next to Alya in their new seating arrangement and pulls down his cap each time, leaning his head so it’s buried in his folded arms. Quiet for the rest of the lesson.

Later, Nino will turn up in the bakery and he doesn’t need to text her, she’s already leaning onto the counter, ready for him. Her Maman still pulls Nino into a faire la bise and a cheek pinch he still melts into, face soft with memories.

While Marinette grabs a tub of chocolate ice-cream, he waits for her in the stairwell with hands tucked into his pockets and headphones half on. She has to blink away the image of him, eight years old and still smaller than her. Tiny Nino with his big smile missing two front teeth and not a care in the world fades away as big Nino looks her way. She has to crane her neck up now to look into his eyes. With a brief second and something sore in her chest, she smiles before they go upstairs and sit down in the corner of the couch. It’s always been the corner of the couch with the four different cushions.

It takes somewhere between three to seven spoonfuls before he finally speaks, “We became bros cause he said he’s only ever had Chloé as a friend and I thought that ain’t good for my boy, you know? Having such a terror be his only friend ever. I thought he’d understand now because at least he did then.”

And Marinette nods but keeps her mouth formed into a thin, crisp line, her hands busy scooping out more ice-cream because if she doesn’t she’ll start crying. Nino is her friend, her oldest friend, but she will not cry in front of him. Not before she tells Alya first, at least. And then Luka. And then the girls. But until then, she won’t cry in front of Nino. It's the smallest thing she can do.

Ten years later and, this time, it’s his heartbreak she’ll listen to.

“I don’t know what happened. Last year, he even told her to he’ll disband his friendship with her so she’d stop acting like a bully but-” he stops, sighs, and then shrugs. Defeat. Three more spoonfuls. “But ever since a couple of months ago, he’s been tight with this idea of redemption.”

“A couple of months ago?”

“Yeah, like right after Lila left.”

“Lila,” she says, the name irritating and harsh on her tongue, dripping poison. Her mind flashes to lies and deceits and she’s itching for a fight. But no. She stops the thoughts. Nino first. Adrien first. Which is an easy and well-practiced pencil sketched pattern to follow.

Why would Adrien change after Lila?

_ Why _Lila?

Think. Think. _Think_.

Her earrings hum and she doesn’t smash her spoon into the bowl, there’s too much self-control and discipline built into her to even think of breaking one of Papa’s favourite ceramics. She places it gently onto her lap, lets her hands curl over the curves of the bowl, fingers slipping across the engravings of birds and flowers. Her mind opens, each brush stroke of her finger detailing a design that might just shatter Paris. Tracing a pattern she doesn’t want to draw but she can’t shake her head of.

“Marinette?” Nino asks and she turns to him, perfect smile already in place. Gleaming.

She says, “Just trying to think about why Adrien can’t seem to understand how much Chloé has hurt all of us." Sigh. Mask fading into real bitterness. "He told me-”

“-we should work this out peacefully,” he finishes with her and they share a look with a thousand thoughts. It’s the closest connection they’ve had in years. It’s probably the saddest connection they’ve had since drifting apart.

He takes off his hat and rakes a hand through his messy hair. “And I told him we already _ gave _ her second chances, maybe too many chances. Heck, the two of us were ready to forgive her in CE1. Even in _ CE2 _ when…”

He clinks his mouth shut into a harsh acrid line.

Ah. Cours Élémentaire 2.

“We were ready for her all the way up to collège,” Marinette says, letting the past sleep and Nino sighs, shuddering, relieved as she is. It might have been her heart breaking again and again back then but scar tissues deep in both their memories. “It’s obvious she doesn’t want to change. How can she when no one will ever teach her the consequences of her actions?”

“Yeah,” he says. “And I can kinda get it. From Adrien’s eyes, Chloé’s life is kinda sad isn’t it? With how much no one cares about her.”

“But it doesn’t excuse how horrible she is to our mentality and our lives. And it’s even worse than a few years ago because _ now _ there’s a megalomaniac who takes advantage of her cruel actions but she. Doesn't. Care!" She stabs at her ice-cream and it's not cathartic, only bitter. "She’s never cared that she’s hurting us and, now, she _still_ doesn’t care that she can get people seriously hurt and even permanently scarred because of Hawk Moth twisting our negative emotions caused by her!” She clenches her hands around the spoon and he puts a hand on her shoulder, soft and understanding. Agreement shining in his eyes because they’d be the CiNnaMon trio before the Ci turned into CI, chlorine burning their lungs. She leans back into the cushions and tries to find comfort in their softness. It doesn't work but it never had, really. She just wants it to.

“I think Adrien wants to redeem her before she _ wants _or even tries to be a decent person. She’s toxic part of all our lives and we’ve had enough of putting up with it. If Adrien doesn’t get that then...” he leans back with her and she can sense the world hush, steaming the water in the air, ready for him to stitch his signature onto this future, “I guess we can’t be bros.”

Slowly, they spend the rest of the afternoon eating half the tub and she pretends not to notice when Nino starts crying. He’d never begrudge anyone else for a moment of weakness, had been always kind to everyone who’d cried on his shoulder, been kind to Marinette the first time she’d experienced a breakdown and anxiety laughed through her in panic attacks and nervousness. But Marinette knows that Nino hates being vulnerable himself, hates acknowledging his vulnerability, and will always prefer to hide hurt behind a smile. So she’ll let him the plea she sees in his buried head, hiding his tears.

The worst and oldest of the wounds have mostly closed up by this point. When Nino became friends with Adrien, found a best friend for himself and didn’t feel alone in a classroom filled with people already paired up, unable to truly feel comfortable with Marinette anymore. When Marinette had found Alya and finally stood up, raised up her chest and told Chloé to back off. The bullied uprising and overcoming. The worst years have been stitched up by this point.

It doesn’t mean it can’t be reopened.

* * *

After Nino finally leaves, she rushes upstairs into her room and Tikki flies down to her, circling around her as she thinks, thinks, _ thinks. _

The Day of Lila can be summed up in a collage of bright images.

Volpina, beautiful, irritating and deadly, unique and so very annoying. 

The thick green jealousy that makes her want to hide under a rock remembering.

The lies that still burns an indignant fire in her because Marinette is forced to lie for _ duty _ and to protect the _ lives _ of everyone she loves while _ this girl _lies for fun, for an easy life, for no other reason but she can.

Adrien.

_ The Miraculous Book. _

“Tikki,” she says, slowly. “Why did Adrien have that book in the first place?”

The Kwami giggles. Her mouth is too small and inhuman for such a beautiful, tinkling human laugh. “Why do you think, Marinette?”

“There are only four people who are connected Kwamis and Miraculous, that I can think of, who should really have link as permanent as the Book. Me, Chat Noir, Master Fu and…”

“And?” Tikki asks, flying close and looking into her eyes. The truth beckons and demands.

She’s already known all of this, Marinette realises and feels _ sick _. The thick air grabs her throat in a tight squeeze as she pretends not she's not hyperventilating and she wants to rip the earrings from her ears.

“Hawk Moth,” she whispers, her knees are weak and she feels crushed by the atmosphere of the world. The earth is spinning so fast underneath her and she needs to slide down onto the floor. Knees tucked under her as she tries not to scream.

“Would you like to talk to Master Fu, Marinette?” Tikki asks, soft and sweet, still smiling with her too small lips and big bright eyes that see everything.

Outside, the waiting skies begin to cry.

* * *

On Wednesday, after the half day of lessons, she throws a party for her friends.

Inviting her classmates up to enter her home without worry and handing out umbrellas for those who forgot theirs, she ushers everyone to head on.

Alya asks, of course she does, but Marinette shakes her head.

It's a surprise when Alya only squeezes her hand once and lets her go.

"Alright, girl," she says. "I'll see you later."

So Marinette nods once, quick and sharp because her insides are slowly turning jittery, before she turns towards her former classroom.

The door is a large, deep and dark brown. It hangs above her and casts an embracing shadow as the afternoon light filters through the windows around it.

She holds her breath as she slides in.

He’s out already but his books and tablet is still there and she doesn’t know whether to be relieved or not. But even then it feels normal. Every missed opportunity, mishandled confession and chance to date have always ended horribly so why not this too?

Silently, she steps inside and puts the broken black umbrella onto his table. Hand lingering, mind holding. The world outside sobbing with the month’s worth of water that’s been hanging around in the air. Her heart spins.

Adrien had been her first crush. All-consuming, completely compelling. Every smile a dream ignited in her. Every sweep of his gaze breathtaking.

In his kind heart, she’d seen a future.

But now, her heart doesn’t thud for him and Master Fu had told her he will contact her after he thinks deeply on the issue.

She’d contemplated writing a note for him. Questions, goodbyes, maybe even her reasoning. But eventually she’d decided on simply giving his first unintentional gift back. It was hers for a year but she doesn’t want it anymore. It's only right to return it.

The end of an era.

And then she turns to go home and, of course, by handing out her spare umbrellas, she’s forgotten to reserve one for herself. Great.

She stands underneath the veranda and tries thinking of ways to get home without completely wrecking her schoolbag. Pretends she's not contemplating how easy it feels to breathe now and every implications linked to that. Maybe she can shuck off her jacket and use it as a barrier. She ignores how there's a taste of a brand new world in her mouth and it's sharp on her tongue. Her jacket's way too thin to get home without completely getting drenched.

“Marinette, there you are!”

She turns and smiles, cheeks flushing.

“Luka, what are you doing here?”

He runs up to her, completely soaked, hair flat against his forehead and as beautiful as a drowned mouse. His converse squeak against the concrete as he skids in front of her.

Leaning down to faire la bise, he grins when some of the water in his hair accidentally slops down and splashes into her. She does. Not. Shriek.

“Sorry, sorry. Rose said Jules heard you tell them you were still at your school and everyone’s waiting for their host to serve them food but where’s your umbrella?” he asks, continuing to grin. She pokes him as softly as she can in the fleshy part of his bicep and he winces, rubbing at his freezing arm.

“Where’s yours?” she asks instead.

He laughs and stray water droplets run across his lips. He holds his hand out, palm catching the sky’s tears as if he was wiping them away. “I love the rain!”

He sounds like a child and she remembers nights staring up at the stars, trying to trace the constellations. It’s not the same as fabrics and stitching but that’s not the point. It’s the joy of wonder. The world is a beautiful place and sometimes it’s nice to remember they live in it to enjoy it.

Even so, she shakes her head at him, “You’re gonna get _ sick _.”

But he only nods. “Maybe but it’ll be worth it if I got to experience this.”

She pauses, lets the rain backdrop the silence of words.

“Will it be?” she asks, grabs at his wet jacket, stares at him with too heavy a question. “Will it be worth it?”

He looks at her and she wonders what he hears in her song that could get him to look at her like that. Like she’s a beat he holds dear in his chest, right next to his heart.

“Of course,” he says. “Cause you’ll get better eventually, Marinette.”

And she believes it.

Tears gathering at the corner of her eyes even as she smiles, she offers her hand to him and he takes it, palm cool, fingers icy. Lightning. His ring spins as she slots their fingers together, cold metal against her warm flesh. A little strange. A little awkward. And she never wants to let go.

She pulls him into the rain and he stumbles a little at her strength but they laugh all the way back to the bakery, splashing through all the puddles as they run hand in hand.

* * *

Before they step inside, he stops her by pulling her to the middle of the empty street.

She turns to him with a question in her eyes because the rain is too loud to even think of speaking and he takes her other hand to put on his shoulder.

As he puts his palm on her back, she smiles at him, close lipped so rain doesn’t get into her mouth and it probably reaches her cheeks in a crooked tilt.

_It doesn’t matter._

He smiles back her with a dimpled grin.

Every bit a drowned mouse.

Blue eyes glittering like a sequins.

Hair plastered to his head in messy clumps.

Beautiful, completely and utterly.

They waltz through the rain.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> LOL and I was thinking, boy, this sure doesn't feel shippy at all for a 'music thread' series post.

**Author's Note:**

> I was sick for the last days so this could have gone out way sooner, sorry. Also this came from just reading the wiki episodes.
> 
> "ml: learning love from the greeks is probably a mistake"
> 
> Come to my new [ML Tumblr](https://stickynotechan.tumblr.com/) for a chat :)


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